Cantor Benjie Schiller wrote an original song for the couple about spices that are mentioned in a well-known psalm about love, the Song of Songs. The tables were also named after the spices, and spice sachets were used to weigh down the escort cards. less

Cantor Benjie Schiller wrote an original song for the couple about spices that are mentioned in a well-known psalm about love, the Song of Songs. The tables were also named after the spices, and spice sachets ... more

Photo: Clara Rice

Image 7 of 13

Mike and Anthony dance at thier June 21 wedding reception.

Mike and Anthony dance at thier June 21 wedding reception.

Photo: Clara Rice

Image 8 of 13

Tal’s Patisserie provided the desserts at Mike and Anthony’s June 21 wedding.

Tal’s Patisserie provided the desserts at Mike and Anthony’s June 21 wedding.

Photo: Clara Rice

Image 9 of 13

Guests observed a Jewish custom of entertaining the couple with utter silliness by dancing in wigs and tutus, juggling, limbo-ing, hula-hooping and more.

Guests observed a Jewish custom of entertaining the couple with utter silliness by dancing in wigs and tutus, juggling, limbo-ing, hula-hooping and more.

Photo: Clara Rice

Image 10 of 13

Image 11 of 13

A stuffed bear on a table at Mike and Anthony’s June 21 wedding in Oakland.

A stuffed bear on a table at Mike and Anthony’s June 21 wedding in Oakland.

Photo: Clara Rice

Image 12 of 13

Mike and Anthony participate in the hora, a traditional dance at Jewish weddings.

Mike and Anthony participate in the hora, a traditional dance at Jewish weddings.

“I’ve never had the experience where someone you meet online looks exponentially better than his picture,” Anthony laughs. “People use photos from before Prohibition; you show up and there’s the Crypt-Keeper.”

What began as a month-long cross-country online correspondence turned into a first date at a New York Mets game when Anthony, an up-and-coming opera singer from San Francisco, moved to New York City to study for two months in the summer of 2007.

Mike, now 43, was campus rabbi for Hillel of Westchester County and living in Nyack, N.Y., at the time.

From chatting online, “it was clear that Anthony was super-intelligent, creative and an artist; that he is the kind of person you want to get to know, which is why his not talking was so weird,” says Mike, who goes by “Rabbi Mike” to his students and congregants.

So, on their second date, Mike asked Anthony, now 35, to sing for him. Anthony’s response? Only if Mike would deliver him a sermon. Their relationship developed quickly from there and, by summer’s end, the two were in love. They had a teary goodbye in Harlem before Anthony headed home.

“Until that point I passively let things happen to me,” Anthony said. “But now I had a major operatic debut under my belt, and I was in love with this amazing man.”

Anthony decided to take a leap and move east. He lived in Washington Heights and worked in a SoHo shoe store, finding the New York opera world nearly impenetrable.

Over time, Anthony moved in with Mike and converted to Judaism. (Anthony grew up in a church-going family in Vallejo.) Hearing Yiddish in a movie set him on a new career path: becoming a singer of the language of Eastern European Jews.

Mike introduced Anthony to more than just Judaism. In addition to his job, Mike is an activist. He’s been arrested protesting unjust deportations of immigrants, has spent time with migrant farm workers in Florida and attended #BlackLivesMatter vigils. He convinced Anthony they should canvas for President Obama.

“There I was, knocking on doors of white peoples’ houses, telling them who to vote for in Pennsylvania,” Anthony said. “Respectful black people don’t do that.” He and Mike attended Obama’s inauguration in 2009 and cried.

The pair moved to Oakland in 2012, when Mike got a job running the religious school at Danville’s Congregation Beth Chaim. He now runs the religious school at Berkeley’s Congregation Beth El. In addition to performing, Anthony teaches students pre-bar mitzvah at Berkeley’s Congregation Netivot Shalom.

Mike never saw the point of going through a marriage that might not remain legal. “This is life for a minority waiting for the majority to get its (stuff) together,” he said. “I wanted a marriage that was a marriage.”

Then the Defense of Marriage Act was overturned.

Mike took Anthony on a private nighttime cruise on the San Francisco Bay in the summer of 2014, on the Hebrew date of their seventh anniversary, and proposed.

They married on June 21 at Preservation Park, a downtown Oakland nonprofit. The ceremony was officiated by Rabbi Lester Bronstein — a mentor of Mike’s from New York — and his wife, Cantor Benjie Schiller, who wrote an original song for the couple about spices that are mentioned in a well-known psalm about love, the Song of Songs. The tables were also named after the spices, and spice sachets were used to weigh down the escort cards.

Guests observed a Jewish custom of entertaining the couple with utter silliness by dancing in wigs and tutus, juggling, limbo-ing, hula-hooping and more. A few guests had been asked to write humorous couplets, and they were read with accompaniment by local Klezmer trio Veretski Pass.

A sampling:

This couple inspires like Miriam, and leads like Moses

Possesses abundant creativity, and just a bissel (bit, in Yiddish) of neurosis

and

The rabbi has a habit of getting arrested,

While the singer stays home, in fear of getting congested.

“Falling in love with him was inevitable, like gravity,” Anthony said. “He’s so passionate, which gives me license to be passionate, too. He’s also the only person I can be truly bitchy with.”

“We spend hours making each other laugh,” said Mike, adding, “We’re both public people who don’t apologize for anything, and we live in a homophobic, anti-Semitic and racist world. I always wanted to know that no matter what the world threw at me, I’m totally safe at home. With Anthony I have that.”